


hands

by iihappydaysii



Category: Outlander & Related Fandoms
Genre: Fluffy, M/M, Romantic Musings, that's all, very short
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-27
Updated: 2020-08-27
Packaged: 2021-03-06 22:22:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 531
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26146339
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iihappydaysii/pseuds/iihappydaysii
Summary: john can't stop staring at hector's hands
Relationships: Lord John Grey/Hector
Comments: 6
Kudos: 35





	hands

**Author's Note:**

> long stuff has felt overwhelming recently so i thought i'd just do some short little stories

John Grey never knew how wonderful hands could be. Nearly everyone had hands, and he’d never found anything remotely interesting or special about them. They were simply useful, a means to an end for work or academics or art. He’d never thought of hands as a kind of art themselves. Until he saw Hector’s hands.

Ever since Grey met Hector Dalrymple, he could not manage to keep his eyes off of those hands. They were wide, rough from the work of a soldier, but still somehow fine and precise. His fingers too were lovely, long, the tips of each one calloused.

Late at night, Grey couldn’t help but imagine those fingers gliding across his skin, sure and firm, and shiver at the thought. It was impossible. Even wrong, perhaps? Wrong and yet _so_ good, and even just allowing the thought of it to float around him and sink down into his chest left him with a sort of satisfaction he’d never experienced before. Those hands, those marvelous hands _on_ him. Touching with purpose.

In the morning, however, Grey would sometimes feel the guilt of it. Especially, when he’d be near Hector, hear his voice and his laugh and see all the person beyond the perfect hands that haunted him at night.

But Hector, _oh God Hector,_ was more than hands, more than the thought of his touch and the way Grey could shut his eyes and still see the glimmer of the sapphire from the ring Hector always wore. Hector was kind and intelligent, creative and bursting with life in a way Grey could only dream of being. When he walked in the room, he commanded attention and he had a way with other men Grey admired. He seemed to innately understand the language men spoke to each other, the one Grey struggled to speak fluently.

Grey saw Hector, he always had. Everyone did, but then, somehow, Hector seemed to see Grey too. In a crowded room, filled with far more important people, Hector’s eyes would find his, and through small, shared moments, they began to find their own language—one of trust, of friendship, of something unnameable—that they shared only with each other. Through all of it, Grey watched those hands. Learned the sight of them up close. The way his ring finger was longer on the left hand than the right. The back of his hands each hand visible veins, blue and branching, like a bird’s foot.

Grey had watched those hands, studied them, for so long that the first time he felt the heat of Hector’s palm against his own, he barely reacted. He’d grown so accustomed to the thought of them, to imagining them, that when Hector had taken his, it had seemed as if they had done it a hundred times before. This act that was by all measures new, important, dangerous and, yes, forbidden, seemed sweetly mundane for a swift, fantastic second. Then, time caught up with Grey and he realized the gravity of it all. Hector Dalrymple was holding his hand as they walked alone in the woods. Grey no longer had to imagine what his hands would feel like. He could know.


End file.
